i read an article, (i wish i could remember where) and it said to run d-ban before installing a new linux os. well, my laptop wasn't working, so i figured that it was time to install my new os. i ran DBAN and it stopped around 3.75% because of "non-critical errors." now i can't install anything on my hard drive, even while running a live cd, i cannot even access the hard drive. how can i set up my hard drive to install my os, or how can i finish what DBAN started.

It sounds like your hard drive was trashed before you ran dBan.

that may be so. i want to know if i can still use that hard drive. is there a better tool for deleting data on a hard drive? do i need to re-burn Dban to avoid the error that is stopping it's progress? should i go and buy a new hard drive, and would that solve the problem? or could the problem be in another part of the computer? i am currently running Ubuntu from an external with no problems, so i think it is just the hard drive.

If you are currently running Ubuntu from CD without problems and since you were unable to boot from your hard drive before you ran dBan I would conclude that it is a bad hard disk.

I would not trust the hard disk and would replace it. You can find any number of replacement hard disks that would direct replacements for your existing drive.

What is the make and model number of your laptop?

i have an hp pavilion dv6000. i will probably look into a new hard drive, but in the meantime i have a guy comming either today or tomorrow who thinks he can fix it. if he does, ill post waht he did to make it work.

Also, the notion that you must use DBAN before installing a new OS is really weird. I don't know where you heard that. DBAN is instead commonly recommended for when you will be transferring ownership of a hard disk.

Any of the hard drives listed on this page should be compatible direct replacements for your hard drive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...ree%20Shipping

Two -almost- universal truths:

1. Software can't destroy hardware, just like the mind power (for the time being) can't move matter.
2. DBAN is not the tool you were meant to use.

That being said: if your BIOS can see the drive, then the OSes should as well. If the BIOS can't see your drive, then either your mother board or the drive itself are fried.

ok... it has the option in my bios to boot from internal drive, but if it is selected, a flashing curser is displayed and nothing happens. if i try and install an os, it says either it cant or something about partition problems. if i try and partition it using a live cd, it won't. if i try and just view it, it doesnt even show up as one of my hard drives inside the os. when my hard drive origionally stopped working, it said something about a kernal... i didnt get a chance to read it all, so i dont know exaclty what was wrong with the kernal. maybe someone could shine some light on kernal problems that could cause this?

No kernel related problem will prevent an install program from seeing your disks, because, on first place, the kernel residing in your HD is not loaded. The error you saw, was probably something like "VFS: kernel couldn't sync" or a similar one, because your kernel was not able to read your disk anymore. It seems to me like a hardware problem, and as I said, it's not related to the software at all.

The first thing I would try is putting your disk on an external case to try it on another pc, or put it as a slave on other pc. That would definitely probe if it's broken or not.

Actually using DBAN is not a bad idea especially if the Window$ partition was infested with viruses. However, DBAN cannot destroy a HDD, all it does it overwrite the data in a way such that it is rendered meaningless to the next user or to authorities.

Try using 'smartctl' on the drive in question and run some tests, but it sounds like it's broken.

Also, I recommend you avoid posting a conclusion as the title of your thread 'DBAN destroyed my hard drive!', even if you may think DBAN destroyed your HDD and are convinced of it. That kind of defeats the purpose of the thread, if you already know what happened, how can we help ? Only to tell you that it did not happen.

I don't see how it would help for that either.

To install Linux you need to reformat. Yep, I know that doesn't really wipe most of the info on the disk, but:

1.- anything not linked on the filesystem is unaccessible via conventional methods, at most you could grep for bits on the device node, but that's all dead code which cannot do any harm at all
2.- even if the infected files were there (which they are not), they would do no harm at all in linux
3.- the only offending piece of code would be in the boot sector, which will be overwritten as soon as the bootloader is installed

Hi,

'DBAN';

As described above DBAN is a utility to use to wipe your hdd thus providing a secure means of having a clean disk. You can expect DBAN to run for quite a while once launched. The completion will depend on the size of the hdd & interface for the hdd subsystem.

When you boot the LiveCD are you able to see the hdd in question? If so then you should be able to run the 'fdisk /dev/your_hdd' to create a new partition(s). Be sure to reboot after the creation of the partition(s) to insure that the partition table is updated.
After that you can then create a new filesystem for the partitions.

This link and others are available from 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

where am i running this "fdisk /dev/your_hdd" bit? in the terminal of the LiveCD?

remember, this is posted in newbie for a reason.

Yes. But before that you should run fdisk -l to see the list of available HDs. If the disk is not there, then fdisk can't see it.